Good example was going over my landfall Damia deck to see if there's any cards there that would have a better home in Kynaios and Tiro lands deck... and I took out five cards with actual 'landfall', the mechanic, on them. Damia had evolved into something more to do with tokens and abusing discard, with the occasional nod (Trade Routes, The Gitrog Monster) to some actual land-changing-zones-and-benefiting kind of thing, but it wasn't really a "landfall" deck anymore.
Another case was certainly Ephara, God of the Polis spirit deck. The initial idea was just to play all the cards that make 1/1 flying spirit tokens. From my previous incarnation of Azorius and from few spirits that do the thing, the deck had a 'freeze creatures' theme. That plus generating a lot of flying tokens led to planeswalkers. And good ETBs on some of the spirits led to Astral Slide and blink shenanigans. And now the deck kind of wants to do all of that. Somehow. Come to think of it, it might warrant a look with the deck, haven't tinkered with it in a while...
I'd avoid creating new legends with many colors while having a popular theme. One problem with additional colors is that decks would be too similar when more colors are shared, lead to overlapping card choices and uncreative deck building.
Dexos the Returned is a great example of how new legends should be, forcing players to do enchantress unique to Orzhov instead of traditional Selesnya, or Noyan Dar, Roil Shaper doing a land deck with WU without green.
...and now I'm thinking what a "typical boring Boros combat-centric legendary" (any of them) would look like if colorshifted(abilities changed accordingly ofc)... in Sultai. Sultai really doesn't have a commander that wants to lead a team to the red zone - though I guess Sidisi, Brood Tyrant can sort of fill that niche if you squint a bit and don't overly focus on the graveyard.
I do agree though. Commanders that make you go 'huh' and consider options you haven't explored are fun.
I play Final Fortune and Last Chance in Etali, Primal Storm. Sometimes you just need one more untap/combat to win, and this is definitely the spiciest way to do it. Or you know, I'm desperate and really really hope Etali gives me something good. Heh. Fun either way.
(Last Chance is definitely also among the best reminder texts along with the one on Obsidian Fireheart.)
I play it in Damia, a fog/landfall deck that tends to draw out games... this is a legit win condition there. As said above, you know you're doing well when opponents are actually not enthused to cast things.
Usually, people are excited for the first couple of draws, and then their expressions start to sour a bit... but oddly, I rarely have Forced Fruition destroyed early enough. Possibly because everyone is drawing cards, the good ol' "someone else will do it" is in effect.
I freely admit I only look at others' playlists when I'm looking for ideas to build the same commander myself.
Then again, I don't post my lists online either. I keep meaning to, but there's not much justification other than for documentation's sake, given the effort involved in writing a thought-for writeup of my decks. (...and if I start down that rabbit hole, well... see my signature.)
I'm far better at 'looking for more cards that are useful in situation X' or 'looking for commanders/builds that kinda do X' topics, heh.
It's also hard to critique anyone else's decklists at a glance, and I just don't feel like devoting a lot of time to actually go through the list. As said above, it's also very likely I'd suggest cards that the creator already thought of.
Well, I'd say that Storrev does not necessarily need that much building around in a planeswalker build - consider the trigger more of a bonus in a grindy deck, rather than the goal to get to repeatedly. 5/4 trample can get through a fair amount, I won't particularly much care if she goes down while at it, and I'll want to be keeping the board pretty clear of (opposing) creatures anyway.
And yeah, obviously Storrev is not that exciting for a pure creature build.
On a hunch, I reckon I'll create a rather 'grind up planeswalkers for value, then get them back to do it again' rather than a traditional superfriends that attempts to do all the ultimates. ...and on principle, not play Doubling Season.
Off the top of my head where my commander pretty much 'created the deck': General Tazri snowball: Allies, and ways to make token copies of Allies. Has a tendency to explode exponentially or fail spectacularly. Athreos, God of Passage: cmc 3-or-less grindy attrition: things die, I benefit. Rinse and repeat a lot due to the very low curve and Athreos being very hard to get rid of - that 3 life starts to look like pretty scary once it happens for the 20th time within a few turns mid-game. The deck begun from having as many Athreos triggers as possible, then the 3 cmc or less limitation came just as a way to limit my possible cardpool to manageable size... Arjun, the Shifting Flame: Cards. All the cards that care about me having cards, drawing cards, or punishing folks based on cards either on my or their hands. Thromok the Insatiable: Make him devour 6-9 creatures, find a way to deliver the mass to an opponent's face. Very explosive. Varina, Lich Queen: Zombies. All the cards in the deck besides lands either are zombies, or reference zombies in their text. No substitutions.
It's danced on the maybepiles before. Even if you don't particularly build around it, just creating a bit of a life cushion later in the game (as long as you're piloting a somewhat creature-heavy deck) is often pretty good. And flying has proven effective at breaking cluttered board stalemates before.
Proliferate is back. Yay? I reckon we might get enough support for it now to build a non-Atraxa, non-superfriends 'messing with counters and proliferate' deck a bit better. Maaaybe.
Dreadhorde Invasion
From the few cards so far, Amass seems like incredibly linear mechanic. You play all of the Amass cards, or none of them, probably.
I kind of like the planeswalkers shown so far thematically speaking, but at the same time static abilities on them are the opposite of what you'd want out of a planeswalkers in commander, because odds are they aren't going to stay around for that long. (Looking at you, Liliana, Dreadhorde General)
I run Toothy in my Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis "Maro" deck, as just one more thing that gets pretty absurdly huge as I draw Mind Unbound levels of cards. I don't run Pir, as very little of the deck otherwise has interaction with counters.
It works, but it's certainly not the most exciting card of the deck, although the 'if this thing gets killed' fallback is nice to have.
However, in your case it might be a pretty safe cut.
It (and Alexei's Cloak/Diplomatic Immunity) has come up in my "maybe"-piles a few times, and even ended up in decks.
When three categories are met:
I need to protect my commander, who WILL draw so much hate that mere pair of boots in the deck will not do.
The commander is central to my game plan.
Said game plan does not involve me targeting my own commander with anything.
Damia, Sage of Stone is a good example where I've needed the levels of protection where the shroud-auras start to make sense. For some reason people don't like me churning through hand after hand for value...
Good example was going over my landfall Damia deck to see if there's any cards there that would have a better home in Kynaios and Tiro lands deck... and I took out five cards with actual 'landfall', the mechanic, on them. Damia had evolved into something more to do with tokens and abusing discard, with the occasional nod (Trade Routes, The Gitrog Monster) to some actual land-changing-zones-and-benefiting kind of thing, but it wasn't really a "landfall" deck anymore.
Another case was certainly Ephara, God of the Polis spirit deck. The initial idea was just to play all the cards that make 1/1 flying spirit tokens. From my previous incarnation of Azorius and from few spirits that do the thing, the deck had a 'freeze creatures' theme. That plus generating a lot of flying tokens led to planeswalkers. And good ETBs on some of the spirits led to Astral Slide and blink shenanigans. And now the deck kind of wants to do all of that. Somehow. Come to think of it, it might warrant a look with the deck, haven't tinkered with it in a while...
...and now I'm thinking what a "typical boring Boros combat-centric legendary" (any of them) would look like if colorshifted(abilities changed accordingly ofc)... in Sultai. Sultai really doesn't have a commander that wants to lead a team to the red zone - though I guess Sidisi, Brood Tyrant can sort of fill that niche if you squint a bit and don't overly focus on the graveyard.
I do agree though. Commanders that make you go 'huh' and consider options you haven't explored are fun.
(Last Chance is definitely also among the best reminder texts along with the one on Obsidian Fireheart.)
Also, Tomik, Distinguished Advokist will find a home in Karametra lands... well, at least until someone copies the thing. -.-
Usually, people are excited for the first couple of draws, and then their expressions start to sour a bit... but oddly, I rarely have Forced Fruition destroyed early enough. Possibly because everyone is drawing cards, the good ol' "someone else will do it" is in effect.
Then again, I don't post my lists online either. I keep meaning to, but there's not much justification other than for documentation's sake, given the effort involved in writing a thought-for writeup of my decks. (...and if I start down that rabbit hole, well... see my signature.)
I'm far better at 'looking for more cards that are useful in situation X' or 'looking for commanders/builds that kinda do X' topics, heh.
It's also hard to critique anyone else's decklists at a glance, and I just don't feel like devoting a lot of time to actually go through the list. As said above, it's also very likely I'd suggest cards that the creator already thought of.
It's not fun watching someone play solitaire, be it by extra turns, or no-one except one player be able to actually do anything meaningful.
And Single Combat is going directly into Yennett because that is a lot of time where a flying/menace thing can fly through freely afterwards.
I am slowly warming to some bits and pieces of this set.
And yeah, obviously Storrev is not that exciting for a pure creature build.
On a hunch, I reckon I'll create a rather 'grind up planeswalkers for value, then get them back to do it again' rather than a traditional superfriends that attempts to do all the ultimates. ...and on principle, not play Doubling Season.
General Tazri snowball: Allies, and ways to make token copies of Allies. Has a tendency to explode exponentially or fail spectacularly.
Athreos, God of Passage: cmc 3-or-less grindy attrition: things die, I benefit. Rinse and repeat a lot due to the very low curve and Athreos being very hard to get rid of - that 3 life starts to look like pretty scary once it happens for the 20th time within a few turns mid-game. The deck begun from having as many Athreos triggers as possible, then the 3 cmc or less limitation came just as a way to limit my possible cardpool to manageable size...
Arjun, the Shifting Flame: Cards. All the cards that care about me having cards, drawing cards, or punishing folks based on cards either on my or their hands.
Thromok the Insatiable: Make him devour 6-9 creatures, find a way to deliver the mass to an opponent's face. Very explosive.
Varina, Lich Queen: Zombies. All the cards in the deck besides lands either are zombies, or reference zombies in their text. No substitutions.
Flux Channeler
Proliferate is back. Yay? I reckon we might get enough support for it now to build a non-Atraxa, non-superfriends 'messing with counters and proliferate' deck a bit better. Maaaybe.
Dreadhorde Invasion
From the few cards so far, Amass seems like incredibly linear mechanic. You play all of the Amass cards, or none of them, probably.
I kind of like the planeswalkers shown so far thematically speaking, but at the same time static abilities on them are the opposite of what you'd want out of a planeswalkers in commander, because odds are they aren't going to stay around for that long. (Looking at you, Liliana, Dreadhorde General)
...I like Ravnica at War, kinda? Sort of?
I worry if this set will have much any interesting legendary creatures though.
It works, but it's certainly not the most exciting card of the deck, although the 'if this thing gets killed' fallback is nice to have.
However, in your case it might be a pretty safe cut.
When three categories are met:
I need to protect my commander, who WILL draw so much hate that mere pair of boots in the deck will not do.
The commander is central to my game plan.
Said game plan does not involve me targeting my own commander with anything.
Damia, Sage of Stone is a good example where I've needed the levels of protection where the shroud-auras start to make sense. For some reason people don't like me churning through hand after hand for value...